In all this the villagers worked as a community, deciding on times of ploughing, often sharing teams of oxen, arranging the details of harvesting, and seeing that no-one exceeded his rights of pasture on the waste. Approval had to be obtained for the cutting of timber to repair houses or farm implements. In Autumn, when the pigs were sent into 'the woods to feed on beech mast or acorns, and when firewood was gathered, each man's rights were carefully checked and regulated. The whole system was restrictive and concerned with subsistence farming to provide a reasonable sufficiency and not primarily with maximum production or with making a profit.

The open field system of agriculture in Somerset was, for the most part, to be found only in the fertile lands of the south and east, and in the Vale of Taunton in the west. Even where the land was productive the system was not very efficient, as about one third of the land lay uncultivated every year. This led many villagers to attempt to overcome some of the more obvious weaknesses of the system by making agreements to exchange their strips in the common fields to form more compact units which they could cultivate more easily and more profitably. During the seventeenth century new experiments in agricultural practice, such as seed-sowing in drills and horse-hoeing, were being tried out; and by the early eighteenth century the old crop rotation of the open fields, two corn crops and a fallow, appeared to be grossly unproductive. New rotations, using clover and sown grasses, and (most important of all) turnips, had completely changed the possibilities of the productivity of land. Sown grasses in leys restored nitrogen to the soil and enabled a greater number of cattle or sheep to be kept in Summer; their manurings greatly improved the land. Turnips were used to feed stock in winter and relieved the dependence on hay. When properly cultivated they cleared the land of weeds, one of the by-products of fallow land: and sheep folded on the turnip fields added direct manuring and provided excellent preparation for a corn crop. Fallowing appeared to be wasteful and unnecessary, and farmers and landowners wanted enclosures' in order to make more efficient use of their arable land. In addition, the new crops and new methods of agriculture drew attention to the commons or wastes, hitherto uncultivated and used mainly for rough grazing, This land was often poor, and only with the improved crops and rotations could it be made productive,

These two main reasons for enclosure applied generally to those parts of England concerned principally with arable farming, but this included only about one third of Somerset. The remainder of the county was either hill country or marsh, neither of which could have heen used for intensive cultivation. Yet in both areas enclosures were attempted over a long period, sometimes without much success, but eventually adding considerably to the county's prosperity.

The simplest method of enclosure was by agreement among the freeholders. If one of these was a dominant landowner he would buy out the other freeholders, tenants and owners of rights of common, probably at a high price or even by using threats of legal action. The more usual method was by exchanges of land or common rights as a preliminary to enclosure 'by agreement', which involved some form of legal confirmation, A great deal of this kind of enclosure must have taken place in Somerset, though few records of it have survived. Some enclosures were achieved by Act of Parliament, and of these the great majority came after the middle of the eighteenth century. In Somerset these Acts are mainly concerned with common or waste land and with meadows, often involving problems of drainage, and they sometimes include a proportion of arabia, though this is often quite small. The Act was obtained by petition to Parliament and followed the usual procedure until the Committee stage, when opposition could be expressed. Usually the agreement of owners of more than three-quarters of the land was sufficient to secure the passage of the Bill. The enclosure was then carried out by commissioners appointed under the Act, who had to be paid for their services and sometimes took several years to complete their task. The total cost was shared out between the proprietors of land in proportion to the amount they owned. Included in the cost were the new roads to link the farms created by the Act either with the village or with other roads in the area. These are described in 1795 as being 40 ft in overall width, with grass verges of 14 ft and a roadway of stones of one foot in depth in the middle and 9 inches at the sides. These roads, which still provide a contrast to the old narrow lanes, with newly planted hedges on the enclosure farms around, added new features to the Somerset countryside. On the Mendips and in other places where stone was easily available, the new boundaries were dry-stone walls, constructed of local stone, set carefully without mortar. During the long period of the Napoleonic Wars, when increased production of corn became a necessity for survival, many of the hill areas of West Somerset were enclosed. On these the hedge banks were planted with beech seedlings which have since developed into high and imposing features of the hilly landscape, and in some places where the enclosure failed to prosper they have become long rows of fine beech trees.

The high proportion of waste land involved in Somerset enclosures is apparent in the fact that 98 acts were concerned only with commons, waste or swampy moorland. The Acts which were concerned in part, sometimes only a very small part, with open field enclosure, began in 1794 when most other counties had completed the process. From 1794 to 1820 there was at least one Act every year, with a maximum of five in the year 1797. Many of the Acts were for villages with land in the Somerset Levels and included drainage as an essential part of the enclosure. In 1816 the enclosure and drainage of West Sedgemoor brought 3000 acres of marsh into use as valuable meadow and pasture for twelve villages in that area. The previous year had seen the beginnings of the enclosure of more than 22,000 acres on Exmoor, with the eventual establishment of an entirely new village at Simonsbath. The story of this tremendous enterprise, which changed the wild moorland, after many difficulties and failures, into productive farms, is told in the book, The Reclamation of Exmoor Forest. The last of the great enclosures of waste land came in 1830 with the 2357 acres of Neroche Forest, having common rights involving 13 neighbouring villages.

Under General Acts of Parliament, which made enclosure cheaper and more expeditious, many small enclosures were completed, and by the end of the nineteenth century there was growing concern about the preservation of open spaces for recreation. At Withypool it was proposed to allot only one acre for recreation out of a total area of 1800 acres, but the protest was so strong that the scheme was rejected by Parliament as not being in the public interest. Again in 1892, when attempts were made to enclose Walton-in-Gordan common and convert it into a game preserve, one of the commoners succeeded in preventing the enclosure by taking legal action at Bristol Assizes. Some common land remains in Somerset, and is no protected under special Acts of Parliament against enclosure, but vigilance and interest are still necessary to ensure that this land is preserved for the future.